"Guitar" Painting

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Avery has been really into painting and music lately so I thought we would try out a new art technique that would combine the two!  I took a lid from an old shoe box and cut a piece of paper to fit inside.  Then Avery and I stretched rubber bands around the lid.  

She spent quite a while just playing the rubber bands like a guitar, she thought it was pretty cool!  

Next, Avery painted the rubber bands and then plucked them to make the paint splatter onto the paper.  Once again, she loved how the rubber bands made music while she painted (which is why she names this project "guitar" painting)!  

The painting turned out so cool and I love how it combined art and music into one project!

Next time we do it I want to put the rubber bands at angles and also try different thicknesses of rubber bands.  


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It's Playtime

Baby Play Date

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Since I hosted a play date for the 2 year olds in our mom group (our messy play date), I figured I should also host a play date for the under 1 kids.  I wanted to keep it pretty simple but also give them some fun stuff to do.  The weather was perfect that week so I knew I wanted to let the little ones play outside.  I decided on setting up 3 stations.  First, I laid out some blankets and put out 2 different infant treasure baskets and a little wagon full of other baby toys.  The babies loved the treasure baskets!  They spent so much time investigating and exploring all the goodies inside them.  I put out our all things shiny basket and our all things wooden basket (I added a couple more things to each one so there would be plenty for everyone).

Next, we set up 2 little kiddie pools.  One had some pool toys thrown in and the other didn't.  One of the little girls spent pretty much the whole time crawling back and forth between the two pools.  It was really cute!  Parker loved it, too!  She wasn't really interested in the toys, mostly splashing and watching the other babies kept her occupied!

Last, Eric and I made a redneck waterbed for the babies to lay on and/or crawl on.  I had seen this idea on Pinterest and had been wanting to make one for a while so this was the perfect excuse  I used a clear plastic sheet (painters' tarp) that was 25' by 10' and 6 mil thick.  We folded the tarp in half and sealed it shut with duct tape (leaving a small hole in one corner for filling).  We put 3 pieces of duct tape on each side.  The first sealing the 2 sides together and then another one on the top and one on the bottom.  It worked really well and I only had one corner that I had to patch.  This one had mixed reviews from the babies, some loved it and some hated it!  Parker loved it!  Her favorite thing was when Avery would run across it or jump on it and the waves would rock her up and down.  She would just laugh and laugh!

We will definitely be getting it out again this summer!  


I'd say the under 1 play date was a success!  All of the babies found a least one activity they enjoyed.  And it was a great way for the babies to stay cool and have fun while the mommas got to hang out and chat!

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Critter Pit Turned Mud Pit

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The day after our Messy Play Date Avery told me she wanted to do some messy play.  I didn't really have anything planned or have materials ready to go but the critter pit from the Messy Play Date was still set up in the back yard (it was one of her favorites and, truthfully, I wasn't really sure what to do with a swimming pool full of dirt).  So, I filled her water table with water and let her turn the critter pit into a mud pit.  

We added in a muffin tin, bowl, spoon, and measuring cup and she had so much fun playing in the mud and making mud cupcakes (with grass sprinkles on top, of course).  

We've left it out and played in it quite a few times, it has definitely become one of her favorite messy play activities!

Messy Play Date

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Last week we finally had our Messy Play Date with my mom group.  I kept it small and limited it to our 2 year old play group for now (next time I am increasing the number of kids and opening it to all ages). Most of the stations were ideas I had gotten from Growing A Jeweled Rose, she has such great ideas and was my inspiration for getting into messy play!  Here were our stations:

Rainbow Noodles (I made them by adding food coloring to the boiling water) 

Oobleck/Goop 

Critter Pit (filled with 2 bags of top soil, plastic bugs, lizards, and snakes, magnifying glasses, bug houses, tweezers, and bug nets)

Sand Castle Spray Painting 

Ball Painting

 Pool of Shaving Cream

Kid Wash and one of our water tables filled with water were our cleaning stations.

The kids had a great time!  Some of them were a little slow to warm up to the messiness of it all (after all a lot of kids are told to not make messes) but everyone ended up getting into it!

The kids had fun mixing some of the ingredients into other stations, like we ended up with noodles in the oobleck/goop (which was really cool) and spray painting the sheet for the ball painting (the kids loved that)!  Parker had a great time too, she joined in with the noodles and the oobleck/goop.  So fun!


We will be doing our next messy play date in about a month!  Can't wait!

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Mud Dough Fun

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In preparation for our Messy Play Date, we have been playing around with a lot of fun, messy activities.  I came across a recipe for mud dough and thought we would give it a try.  


Mud Dough Recipe
½ cup of cold water (we ended up using more water than this, it was too thick)
1 tablespoon cooking oil
2 tablespoons brown tempera paint
½ cup of salt
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 ½ cups of white flour

This was the invitation Avery woke up to after nap that day.  I pre-measured but let her do all the mixing, which she loves!

As you can see, it was a little thick so as we played we added a bit more water to make it a little thinner but we still left it pretty thick.  We also got out bowls of little marshmallows, dry oatmeal, and uncooked rice and pasta so she could make a mud cake.

She had such a great time, it is definitely one we will be doing again!

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It's Playtime